


Queuing, Waiting and Flying

by Jenny_Starseed



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Airports, Friendship, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-15
Updated: 2012-01-15
Packaged: 2017-10-29 13:59:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/320678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jenny_Starseed/pseuds/Jenny_Starseed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock loves airport waiting lounges, the same could not be said about the aeroplane itself. John suffers the consequences of flying with Sherlock for the first time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Queuing, Waiting and Flying

Sherlock loved airports. He loved the different dialects, languages and heightened emotions swirling around him. The differing clothes, customs, people from all over the world and their confusions and apprehensions from being somewhere foreign. He was like a child in a sweets shop, he could spend hours observing and deducing people. All the better when he sat in the uncomfortable waiting chair, watching mothers fuss over their children (have you’ve gone to the washroom? Toilet? Loo? Ladies room? So many words for lavatory!), unhappy couples, the consultation of various tour books...it was exhilarating.

He liked watching what people ate, their puzzlement at a British brand of coffee that was foreign to them and the expressions of relief when they found a Starbucks nearby. He watched the last minute tasteless souvenirs people bought: Cadbury chocolate, sweets like jelly babies and ordinary biscuits that only foreigners thought were interesting, over-priced tea and various tasteless Union Jack t-shirts, teddy bears and key rings. Most of all, he loved hearing people’s observations about London; how confusing the Underground was, their favourite tourist destinations and the little cultural differences in food.

He was waiting for an American flight to New York with John, and he was quite excited. Contrary to what people think, Sherlock hasn’t visited many destinations outside of Europe. He’s been on the continent (who hasn’t?); to France, Russia, Germany, Italy and Hungary. But this was his first flight over seas. It was a gift from Mycroft, after solving a delicate international case that involved smuggling and forgeries of certain historical pieces. The free trip to New York City was likely given as incentive for Sherlock to work with Mycroft on future cases, but Sherlock didn’t particularly care. He always wanted to visit America, especially one its world class cities to see if it could compare to his beloved London.

Normally, he liked to listen to the multiple languages spoken around him, testing his language skills. He could speak about four languages fluently and a few needed work. His Russian needed a lot of work; he was always eavesdropping on conversations, hoping to find a Russian speaker to listen to. Unfortunately, he was on an American flight and the majority of the passengers spoke English. It was not a loss; he could still find their accents fascinating. Especially the American accents that were not the American mid-western accent most Brits were familiar with on the telly, it was the Southern accents and the East Coast accents that were fascinating to him. He was currently listening in on a Southern couple who were talking about iced tea and the lack there of in Britain when John interrupted his thoughts.

“Sherlock? Do you know what the time is?” asked John.

“1pm, John.”

“Really? Our plane doesn’t arrive until 3pm, Sherlock,” John said irritably. “I can’t understand why you wanted to come four hours early for our flight!”

“Airports!” exclaimed Sherlock. “Aren’t they marvellous junction points? So much to observe, so much to see! A million permutations of anxieties, excitements and the cultural confusion! It is fodder for my observational research on human behaviour John.”

John sighed and slouched down on his uncomfortable plastic chair. Trust Sherlock to have that manic gleam in his eye while waiting in an airport.

“Sherlock, I thought there was a particular important reason to be here early,” said John. If Sherlock didn’t know any better, it sounded like John was whining. Interesting.

Sherlock gave John a smug grin. “John, are you bored?”

“Yes, I’m bloody well bored,” exclaimed John. “You won’t let me buy that John Grisham novel—“

“Boring!”

“—there’s nothing to do, the tea is horrible and everything is overpriced! And these chairs are damn uncomfortable. And we’re not DOING anything. Next time, I will meet you at the airport at a later time. The waiting is awful, how do people do it?”

“Observations, John!”

John threw up his hands and got up. “Oh god, never mind. You do your marathon deductions of tourists while I buy that John Grisham novel from the duty free shop.”

Ninety minutes, 120 deductions and 70 pages of the John Grisham later, it was time to board their plane. The queue was long and slow as the stewardess checked everyone’s passports and documentation. People were checking their bags to make sure they had everything while various IPods, IPhones, Blackberries and tablets were pulled out while waiting to board the flight.

John breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, they were boarding the plane. He could watch the crap in-flight entertainment, have more comfortable chairs to lie in and maybe sleep a bit. He had to wake up bloody early that morning to get to the airport to sit in a bored stupor with Sherlock for four hours. He was now actually going somewhere and he was actually quite excited.

He looked over at his flat mate, who looked distinctly uncomfortable. His eyes scanned the queue; his fingers clenched his cup of coffee and his eyes wide and expressionless.

“John, how long is the flight?”

“Eight hours, Sherlock.”

If John didn’t know any better, he could have sworn Sherlock turned pale at John’s answer. He nodded briefly, shoved his large cup of coffee in John’s hand, and pulled out his blackberry and started tapping on it rapidly before giving a dramatic sigh.

“You’ve never been on such a long flight, have you, Sherlock?”

Sherlock put away the blackberry and grabbed the coffee cup from John. “No. Never longer than four hours, and even then I felt the curved walls closing in on me.”

“You’re not claustrophobic, are you?”

“God no,” Sherlock snapped, his left hand gesturing in wild frustration. “No, it’s the recycled air, the cramped feeling in my legs that can’t stretch properly, the terrible food, the bad telly and so-called “in-flight entertainment,” and the seating arrangements are not conducive to proper deductions and observations of passengers. It will be a bloody nightmare. Bugger all, my mind will rot in this flying tin box that allows no room for men over six feet to stretch their legs.”

Sherlock punctuated his frustration by taking a long gulp of coffee. A triple espresso Americano from Starbucks, if John read the angry marks on the cup correctly.

“How many of those have you had?”

“Three.”

“Three?” John repeated with alarm. “Bloody hell, no wonder your hands are shaking.”

“John, I need the stimulant to keep my mind sharp after only receiving three hours of sleep in the past 48 hours.”

“Why didn’t you sleep more, you idiot?”

“Calculated jetlag, John!” explained Sherlock in his why-am-I-with-idiots voice. “I planned to sleep during the whole flight, bypassing the annoying waste of jetlag. Why would I want to nap in a hotel room when I can do so in a boring aeroplane?”

“Yeah, except you’re completely caffeinated on coffee and you won’t be able to sleep on the plane.”

“Shut up John,” snapped Sherlock. “I miscalculated, I was feeling fatigued an hour ago while listening into a particularly interesting conversation about a filly cheese cake sub, I cannot fathom what that is. I ordered another coffee to properly continue my eavesdropping.”

“I think you mean cheese steak sub,” corrected John. “I was listening to that couple too, I had no choice. There was nothing to do and that John Grisham novel was utter shite.”

He grabbed the large cup of coffee from Sherlock’s jittery hand and tossed it in the rubbish bin. Sherlock did nothing but sulk for the rest of the wait in the queue, as if he was waiting for his death, a very boring death. He was mumbling something under his breath; John recognized it as the periodic table, the elements in alphabetical order. There were not enough elements on that table to keep Sherlock from sulking for the rest of the eight hours, and he wasn’t even on the plane yet. Bugger all, how were they going to survive?

Eventually, they had their passports checked; they boarded the plane, finished putting away their bags in the overhead compartment and fastened their seatbelts. Sherlock had a seat by the window, he listlessly watched the dull concrete scenery outside with a tortured look of boredom on his face. There had to be something to keep Sherlock from performing an epic four hour sulk before dropping off to an exhausted sleep.

John tried to get Sherlock to deduce the passengers, but Sherlock quickly got bored of that. He couldn’t see anyone from where he sat to deduce them properly. Besides, he already deduced all the interesting people and they would all become boring once they boarded the plane. Everybody did the same thing on an aeroplane, watch telly, sleep uncomfortably and occasionally take anti-anxiety pills while pulling up their compression stockings. He had to find a way to take Sherlock’s mind off of his boredom.

“Sherlock, you’ve never told me about your first case.”

Sherlock sat up straighter, giving John a look of interest. Of course, thought John, it was the perfect solution. Sherlock was such a narcissist, talking about himself will pass the time nicely. John took out his notepad to take down the details, to show Sherlock he was genuinely interested.

Sherlock steeped his hands under his chin. “You want to know about my first case? Why?”

“I’m your blogger, Sherlock. It would be a nice addition on my blog,” replied John.

Sherlock gave John a small smile and began his story. John gave an internal sigh of relief, they would both survive this flight after all.

**Author's Note:**

> None of these characters are mine. Unbeta-ed and Unbrit-picked.


End file.
